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Monthly Archives: May 2017

Collaborative collage conversations – I have been making collaborative letter journals for a while but most of them occur with people who are over seas, so even though they are great fun and interesting there is no sense of immediate interaction. Like the give and take of a conversation.
I had a go working in this format at my recent training session with Jo – it didn’t really work as I expected because we were making two collages ( so that we each had one to take home) .

I felt excited to work with Jo, we had a great conversation before the art session and bounced around lots of ideas about how to work with the participants.

When we had the collage conversation She was very strict and didn’t allow any talking throughout. I found it quite hard not to look at things to choose in advance of her input. I added text by using cut out words from magazines and circling them from the bodies of text. I had included some of my mandalas in the bags of scraps for the main session, I found I wanted to add bits of those. Jo added a window/ hole over the top of my section excluding some of the green , it felt restricting and excluding so I added another piece further down the page . We both had soup for dinner and had talked about my obsession with circles which seemed to creep into the designs as well.

Jo disrupted the surface in the bottom piece too by poking holes with a needle in to the red paper on the left. I am gluten free and supposedly dairy free in my diet so I reacted strongly to the ice cream being added by adding the signposted food, which just jumped out at me when I was flipping through a magazine. It was fun and interesting for me to be quiet. When Jo uses this technique with a client she said she watches body language and placement of the pieces.

I wanted to do more. My friend Diana came around to play. We couldn’t keep quiet ( we hadn’t seen each other for about a month) we agreed not to discuss making the collage. We started of quiet tentatively

The colour scheme was muted and the text playful ( we make each other laugh a lot) . As we worked the design seemed to want to explode off the end. Interestingly as an aside I managed to introduce ‘dance’ to this collage and one of the first ones with Jo. ( dance had become quite large in my life at the moment at least 2hrs a week)

The second one is much louder in comparison. Diana wanted to add the circle of rainbow watches so I added texture and colour to the background while she ‘fussily’ (technical term) cut it out the rainbow circle. The making atmosphere was light hearted and jolly – it wasn’t as intense as working quietly. Then I found the red acrylic sheet. It was much more give and take working on one sheet

I need to do this again in silence and just on one sheet.
Today

I realised , that the person I most needed to have a conversation is , with my self- I always have trouble with my irritable , migrainey bowel when I travel – but I seem incapable of staying focused and looking after it – I can see a series of conversations looming on the horizon ( lol)

Number 1 : ‘why can’t you be kind to me?’ Some times I worry about talking to my self in the 3rd person – this time it is my stomach complaining. The waves represent the inexhaustible relentlessness of eating – everybodies eating , it’s always about food. What can I get away with, what will not upset me today? I definitely have a disassociation with the communication between my mouth and my stomach. W ords I added say ‘it’s all about today, excuses , bad,health, everyday, why, food, forget,snackisfaction ( because it was there ) irresistible, selective blindness, I want to be healthy. Punishment, relentless’ when I think about children been blown up by bombs it seems trivial and insignificant – but I am ground down by it everyday and up until now seem unable to be kind and break the cycle. I start and stop , but don’t get off the treadmill

Co -facilitated with Jo from the charity in Dunfermline- the participants were all counsellors interested in introducing art journalling to clients ( 4 participants) Due to the small size of the group Jo and I worked together on a couple of exercises so that we gave the participants space

Start 10-11am I demonstrated how to make two simple journals (see previous blog post)

Jo suggested that we started by making a ‘safe page’ in the journals, ( one of the participants had been unable to attend the first session so we revisited magazine collages) . Some suggestions for ideas if clients don’t know where to start were – to do a page of your favourite colour, use words that suggest what your safe space might look like., use found images to create an image of your safe space

Group discussion 11-11.20

Coffee

Exercise 11.30-1pm

Demonstration- Jo and I explored how to use pastel and felt pen to express feelings – I drew whilst Jo prompted me to be reflexive about my mark making in front of the group ( at their request 10-15mins)

The group divided into pairs and had 25 mins each working as counsellor/ client in the medium of their choice- 3 used Patel and crayon, 1 person used collage.

Jo and I did the soft eye flicking through a magazine and chose words and phrases that appealed to us – I found that I had chosen the word ‘colour’ but my words lacked colour or were in black and white. So I added wax crayon and circled words that had more meaning to me than others

Group discussion

Lunch 1-2pm

Exercise 2-245pm

Before this session Jo and I discussed different ways that we could use collage in pairs – Jo suggested having a silent dialogue

We suggested that the participants worked in collage collaboratively in 2 journals at the same time so that they each had an example to take home – this diluted the experience a bit, some people found they had two seperate conversations. Jo has found it more intense if you just work on one page and watch as the other person makes their part of the conversation. Looking at body language and how images and text are placed on the page

Examples of conversations

1.

2.

2.45-3.15 pm Evaluation/ discussion

Jo fancied the group producing an evaluation of the session as collage/ mixed media. So we each produced an index card that illustrated how we felt about the session- one of the participants cards was two sided. (Mine is bottom right these sessions always make me very happy)

Following on from my recent introduction to art journalling – I did another session for the counsellors and in September will do one for the group workers. In this session we explored how to do art journalling / expressive art with clients.

There was a request for me demonstrate how to make a couple of different types of journals we made an accordion and a pamphlet stitch journal

1) Accordion fold journal – I couldn’t find an easy step by step illustration on the Internet so I photographed one I made – there are lots of videos on YouTube

Accordion fold – you will EE’s 6 sheets of paper that are the same size, I am recycling an Edinburgh International brochure

fold all the piece in half to make fat halves

Take one sheet and fold again into quarters , then rip or cut into strips along the folds

Fold the strips in half again , these are the joining strips for the other pages

Open up a strip and apply PVA glue , thinly all over ,take one of the other sheets of paper and lie it down on the wet strip in line with the fold

Take another piece of paper and lie it down on the other remaining glue strip

If I flip the two sheets over at this stage you can see the strip which is yellow on one side gluing the two pages together

Repeat , glueing all the strips to the remaining sheets to create a long thin strip

Fold this strip, using the folds and glued strips as a guide ,into an accordion shape.

Make 2 thicker pieces of paper/card the same size as the fat halves and glue them to the first and the last page – this makes the journal stronger for carrying and keeps it together. when you have finished working on the pages- you may want to tie it together with a ribbon or apiece of string.

I always use a variety of papers in my journals to make ‘folios’ – the one we used today were made of Matt magazine pages, book pages ,white cartridge paper and one of my doodles. We use the metric ‘A’ system for our paper sizes in the UK – the paper was approx A4 ( 8.5″x10″) before folding.

I facilitated an introduction to art journalling for some group workers and counsellors in Dunfermline yesterday – they are hoping to introduce some journalling to their clients so I have written an outline of the session. ( The group had a big range of art experience , from seasoned art makers to those who were quite anxious of using art materials )

I have been art journalling with my friend Debbie and following Shelley Klammer , Lisa Sonora and Orly Avineri – so they have influenced my work heavily . I also draw from my art practice and teaching experience

This CPD session shows you how to start art journaling – using simple techniques to explore feelings and emotions through art materials – have fun using found images, explore collage and expressive techniques with crayons and